The field of the disclosure relates generally to a power generation plant, and more specifically, to a system and method for monitoring gas turbine combustor hardware.
Combustion hardware is critical to an operation of gas turbines. However, issues can develop with combustion hardware in a power plant that results in undesirable operating conditions or even damage to a gas turbine. For example, combustor cans may have mechanical problems relating to fuel nozzles, liners, transient pieces, transient piece sides, radial seals, and/or impingement sleeves. These problems can lead to damage, inefficiencies, or blow outs, which can lead to an unplanned forced outage and collateral damage to a combustion system and the gas turbine. Therefore, to achieve acceptable system durability and reliability, combustion hardware should be carefully monitored and controlled. However, conventional systems for monitoring combustion hardware are not proactive in detecting combustion hardware damage. As such, an alarm triggered by conventional systems is often late and major damage has already been done.